


you've got more poison than sugar

by caligulasavior9



Category: Call of Duty (Video Games)
Genre: Betrayal, Brainwashing, Denial of Feelings, Drama, Emotional Manipulation, Eventual Smut, F/M, I'll add more tags later, Kinda, Older Man/Younger Woman, Slow Burn, Unhealthy Relationships, and pining and angst, and subterfuge and of course smut, dark adler, pov adler, this is basically bell/adler with a heavy sub/dom undertone, yes there'll be smut in later chapters
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-23
Updated: 2021-03-04
Packaged: 2021-03-13 13:29:08
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,927
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29652051
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/caligulasavior9/pseuds/caligulasavior9
Summary: "You know, I'm just tryin' to look out for you, kid."Her lips twitch but the rest of her visage remains impassive and faraway, more like a flick knife than a woman. The correlation is uncanny.That's when she inches closer. The space between them bridged. He freezes. Hyper-aware of just how dangerous this is, but can’t bring himself to pull back, to look the other way. Not when her hand reaches out to pluck the cigarette from his mouth, eyes still glued to his, and curls her lips around the filter. One heavy pull, and then she rolls down the window and tosses it out on the side of the road."Thought I'd reciprocate the sentiment."And with that, she leans back in her seat before Adler could even process what has just transpired.
Relationships: Russell Adler/Bell
Comments: 15
Kudos: 52





	1. one

**Author's Note:**

> i don't know what i'm doing. one moment, i was watching the walkthrough of the new call of duty game, found myself curious, acutely curious by that guy with the scars and shades on- a younger, shadier (no pun intended) Robert Redford in Spy Game and oh my... fast forward to 2 weeks later, here we are.

_A house somewhere on foreign soil,_

_Where ageless lovers call,_

_Is this your goal, your final needs,_

_Where dogs and vultures eat,_

_Committed still I turn to go._

_  
I put my trust in you.  
  
_

_A Means To An End - Joy Division (1980)_

* * *

It's mystifying how little she talks. Or when she does, it's always in fragments. Like a crossword puzzle in your local newspaper, but several letters are missing. He initially thought maybe MK-Ultra fucked her head or worse, if it hasn't worked at all, but the more he watches her, the more he realizes it's just the way she is. And it's ironic because he named her _Bell_. He expected her to chime like a goddamn goldfinch yet here they are. 

But he won't be fazed. Russell Adler is a man who's stopped at nothing in getting what he wanted before, he sure as hell won't stop now for a close-mouthed science project.

* * *

"We've got a job to do, Bell."

It intrigues him, every time, the way the words trigger something deep within her psyche, the way her eyes change, her body stands a little straighter, like a machine ready to function at his disposal. It reminds Adler of one of those cartoons he watched when he was a kid about wizards and magic words, except there are no musical dance numbers playing in the background or a talking cricket perching on his shoulder. This is his power over her, over the USSR, over Perseus. That monstrous filth. It really does take a beast to tame another. 

Although he surmises calling Bell one would be superfluous. 

She barely looks like one, but Adler knows too well than to underestimate her. Just because Bell hasn’t shown her set of claws, that doesn’t mean she’s harmless, delicate, like a miniature China Doll in his breast pocket.

Bell never offered him her reply before, but now, _now_ , she nods, head almost bows, obedient pretty thing, and says:

“Yes, Adler.”

So it goes.

* * *

It takes West Berlin for Adler to realize she’s left-handed.   
  
She wears her watch on her right hand, smokes with that same said hand only when she’s writing or moving her pieces for an impromptu late-night game of chess against Lazar. And she always wears her gloves all the time- leather, black, lined with silk and pretty, small buttons on the cuffs, covering those striking red nails underneath. Whether it is for the theatrics or an old habit of hers, he can't really tell.

He doesn’t know why he begins to take notice of these mundane details about Bell, but rationalizes because he’s never been in the same room with this version of her, post-brainwash Bell, for more than 10 minutes. And for all intents and purposes, there’s still a lot of question marks surrounding her character; who is she? Where did she come from? What is her connection to Perseus? 

Are they in a possession of a walking, breathing bomb about to destroy them all or the West’s only salvation?

He supposes he’ll find out soon enough.

* * *

Adler hears Bell from his table, typing busy on the computer- barely blinking- all soaked up in that caffeine-infused energy at 1 am. She's always like that, he learns, when it comes to working, always with that steel determination, pulling out all the stops as long as it gets the job done- that Soviet discipline at it's finest.

Reminds him a little of himself when he's young.

Adler walks up to her. 

“You done for the night?” A shake of her head is her only response. He sighs. “You should go home, Bell.” 

“You go. I’ll lock up behind you,” Bell replies, low and monotone; that youthful stubborn.

If she was any other person, he would probably commend her for such fierce willpower, but she is Bell, the walking conundrum, his ace in the hole. Call him paranoid, but the idea of her having the safehouse for herself does nothing but raises every alarm in his head.

“No, we’re going home,” he says instead, tone brooking no argument and she frowns at the screen, her fingers stop moving then looks up at him with those goddamn empty eyes. "Come on, it's late anyway."

She doesn't say anything. Adler wishes he could read her mind- or crack that lovely skull on the back of her head, dissect her brain, learn its secrets and answers. 

Adler has his gun with him. It wouldn’t take long. A quick, true shot to the heart to keep the brain intact. He’d have Hudson contact one of his people inside BND and he'd deliver the brain himself if he has to. They could do it. He heard they’ve been studying inmates' brains for decades now, anyway. 

Before he has a chance to entertain the idea further, though, Bell nods once and rises up from her seat. 

Bell walks past him. Her scent, like honeysuckle on ice, hits him like an uppercut in the face. Adler inhales, as if against his will. 

He thinks he could get drunk on it.

“Hop in. I’ll drive you back to the hotel,” he says once they’re outside, regretting the decision the moment the words left his lips, but he knows he can’t just leave her on her own at this late hour.

The irony isn’t lost on him, though, considering he just thought about unspooling her brain a few minutes ago.

Bell complies without a protest. Getting inside the passenger seat, wordless still, fingers toying with the radio. An angry, krautrock music comes blaring all over his car. Adler winces, but at least the riot is loud enough to muffle the one's brewing in his head. 

"How's your memory these days?" 

Bell shrugs. "Nihil novi sub sole." _There's_ _nothing new under the sun_.

 _Good_ , he muses. The least she knows about herself the better.

Though that doesn't mean he's out of the woods yet.

"Listen, from now on, I want you to keep me informed if there's any new progress about your memory or if you've developed any new symptoms. I want to know _everything_." He steals a sidelong glance at her, making sure she is listening (she always does, but Adler needs an excuse)

( _An excuse for what?)_

"Alright, Bell?"

"Of course," replies the woman in question.

"Good." Adler shifts his attention back to the road. "Good." Taking a long drag, he considers trying to appeal to her sentimental side. It's not something you'd improvise last minute- at least not with someone you brainwashed to believe you are her mentor/confidant for the past decade, but he's itching to know where he stands with her.

"You know, I'm just tryin' to look out for you, kid."

Her lips twitch but the rest of her visage remains impassive and faraway, more like a flick knife than a woman. The correlation is uncanny.

That's when she inches closer. The space between them bridged. He freezes. Hyper-aware of just how dangerous this is, but can’t bring himself to pull back, to look the other way. Not when her hand reaches out to pluck the cigarette from his mouth, eyes still glued to his, and curls her lips around the filter. One heavy pull, and then she rolls down the window and tosses it out on the side of the road.

"Thought I'd reciprocate the sentiment."

And with that, she leans back in her seat before Adler could even process what has just transpired.

* * *

“Welcome back to the land of the living, kid,” Adler greeted her, about a month ago. 

Park had insisted that he had to be there for her when she woke up (naturally, Adler had balked at the idea, but at the English woman’s fact-of-the-matter explanation, also because it had somewhat dawned on him last minute the logic behind her machinations- “both of you are supposed to have known each other for years now. If she doesn't see you by her side, she’s going to wonder why”- thus, here he was)

“How are you feeling?” 

Bell blinked owlishly and stared at the older man with those bottomless, cat-like eyes that had haunted him since January.

Her gaze eventually softened as recognition flickered across her face.

“Like someone just hit me in the chest with a bulldozer,” she said hoarsely. “Where are we?”

“St. Dismas’ hospital, Pittsburgh.” Adler got up and fetched her a glass of water from the table. “Although not a bulldozer, but bullets did. That, and you hit your head really hard on your way down. Thought we’d lost you there, Bell.”

Bell drank in silence. She’s still watching him, thinking. This was the first time he realized that he couldn’t exactly read her expression and somehow that threw him off.

“What happened?” she asked, one hand mid-air, like she was deciding which to touch first, hesitating and abandoned the idea. 

“You don’t remember?” She shook her head. Adler pretended to look remotely distressed about it. “The doctors warned me about this. It must have been because of the fall- heck, I could even still hear that sickening crunch from here.” He dragged his chair closer towards her bed.

“We were in Amsterdam. Remember Fohler?” she shook her head again. “Well, we’d been tracking this son of a bitch for months, but we were chasing him in Amsterdam. He was running away and climbed up some scaffolding. You were about to go up after him,” he recited the fabricated story he, Park and Hudson had crafted. “He shot you and you fell and hit your head against the pavement.”

Bell looked away first, silent. Her hand gingerly touched the back of her head and winced, albeit only slightly. 

Adler was almost impressed, if not, disarmed by how calm and composed her reaction was to all of this. But then again, after having had witnessed first-hand how the woman barely flinched under any kind of interrogation technique they threw at her- a personality built for wrestling tigers- he really shouldn’t be surprised. 

“Bell, what is the last thing you remember?”

Bell frowned. “Not much. I remember ‘Nam, but-”

“Vietnam? Kid, that was thirteen years ago.” Adler watched the way her throat bopped, like she was swallowing her own blood and the color drained from her face, just like the first time he’d seen her, and proceeded to drop the bomb:

“Bell, the year is 1981.”

* * *

"Bell dear, would you mind taking a look at this?" 

Park's voice sails from across the room. She says it like it's a compound word: _Bell-dear_. Like the two words belong together. _Bell-dear_. 2 syllables, 1 word, 9 characters and that just might be the weirdest thing he hears this year and he heard many things.

"Bell dear?" Adler asks much later, his gravel-and-smoke voice reduced to a whisper, when she delivers a document to his table.

Park shrugs as if that explains everything. "What? I like her." 

He's tempted to say you really can't put a term of endearment and someone you brainwashed into submission in the same sentence, but what else is new?

* * *

They wind up in a bar. It’s called Die Stube and the place’s brimmed with artists and all sorts of leather-clad, Bowie-esque dramatic, chromatic blue eyelids young people chattering over a dirty cloud of smoke.

The two of them colonize a lone booth in the back. It’s dark and the quietest. She orders a beer and he, a scotch and they drink in silence. There are moments where her head would twist to the side, as subtle as a needle and survey the phantasmagorical scene before them, like studying something from a petri dish. 

While he’s watching her.

Only to tear his gaze away to the nearest object he can find.

It lands on his watch.

"It’s almost ten. Hudson's contact should be here soon," he announces, if anything to distract himself. She nods mutely in reply, as always, and runs a finger around the rim of her glass.

"The place ain't much of your scene?" 

She shrugs, like it's self-evident. "I didn't know _this_ was a scene, though."

"Well, that’s West Berlin for you. A worry-free playground for the hedonists, hipsters and proto-electro NDW enthusiasts with drugs on tap," Adler says, sipping his drink in practiced nonchalance. "Always makes my head spin."

"I guess I remember it differently," Bell replies, tinged with something akin to begrudging. 

That warrants his full attention. "What do you remember?”

Bell shrugs again and lights a cigarette instead, menthol, one of those long, skinny cigarettes they only market for women; biding her time, making him wait. She lets the smoke flares from her nostrils so her eyes are veiled.

"It’s hard to explain, but I suppose it’s grittier?” she gesticulates, searching for the right word like she’s skim reading the entire Oxford dictionary in her head. “Bizarrely, infinitely grittier and dimmer? Like being in an underground tunnel and there's not much to see."

 _Interesting._ Maybe she’s recalling one of her ops for Perseus or her mind is confusing her with the world on the other side of the wall.

“Maybe you’re remembering one of our clandestine ops here. It was a few years after Vietnam,” Adler supplies, passing over the tale like bait.

She falls for it, hook, line and sinker.

“Ah, I guess that also explains my fluency in German.”

“I taught you that.” It’s only logical, he decides, that she learned from him. She’s supposed to be his protégé after all. 

An elegant brow quirk. "You did?"

"Yeah, though you were already fluent in Latin, Russian, Vietnamese and Portuguese when we first met anyway. You have quite a natural ear, kid.”

She gives him a look. He really can’t categorize it, but it makes it a whole lot harder to fight against her stare.

“What else did you teach me?” 

If they were anyone else, the lines could have a potential to entice, to seduce, that winsome, catty-eyelashes coquette, but they _aren't_ anyone else and Bell does not voice it like that. Yet the implication behind the question stirs something in the pit of Adler’s stomach anyway, that tight knot of confusion as it is buried with something else and he finds himself, once again, uncharacteristically speechless.

* * *

That particular question of her stays, even hours later, unbidden. Interspersed with her scent and face. 

His emotions are a minefield whenever she’s near now. It evokes that newfound rush of terror within him, like walking on a tightrope or being thrown into the pit to face hundreds of hungry lions, bare hands. It makes Adler questions his every decision, and he can’t have that in his line of work. 

Adler lights his sixth cigarette, contemplating everything, nothing. Anything to distract him from her. It's 4 am and he’s exhausted, but his mind won’t stop whirring. This isn’t like him at all- like he's lost somewhere in a Dali-style labyrinth that is his head and he wonders if this is a byproduct of his fear or fascination or confusion for the young woman.

He fears it is all of them.

* * *

(They're only 10 minutes away from East Berlin when he senses it, something akin to burning on his peripheral vision, pulling him like weight.

He cocks his head slightly to the side.

Bell is staring at him from across the seat.

Adler catches the quick, telling quirk of her lips, like she's about to smile but lights a cigarette instead.)

* * *

“Did you hear that?”

Krauss has just crossed the wall and their soles are slippery from the rain. She's panting. Her breath is white like a fog. Adler muses it must be from the running, until his iris trails down to where her hand is clutching his jacket sleeve, the leather creasing like a modulation signal.

“What is it?” Adler asks, hushed. There are no Stasis here, but even one can't be too careful.

“The TV.” She’s gaping at the broken TV next to them. Adler looks at the said object, frowning, then back to her. “Y-you didn’t hear it?”

"Heard what _?_ Bell, the thing's dead."

Bell withdraws from him. Stepping back until her back meets the walls, her eyes seeing and unseeing, like a lens finding focus in the dark, then she closes them, as if trying to regulate her breathing. Adler has never seen her scared shitless of anything before. The sight confuses as it intrigues him. 

"Bell, what's going on?" Adler steps closer, but he dares not to touch her. 

She shakes her head, dismissive. In just a span of seconds, Bell dons that mask she likes to wear again; deadpan and frustratingly distant. A spike of annoyance drives through him. Just when he thinks he can get through her, there she goes again, retreating behind her palisades.

"Nothing." Bell turns away abruptly and she’s walking again."Let's just go. The others are waiting for us."

He doesn't pry about whatever she heard on the TV- Adler knows better than to beat a dead horse, thank you very much- not even after they save her from Volkov's clutches, after she bashes his head against the steel door and reeks his blood all the way home, it seems superficial at the time.

Until two days later.

* * *

The day starts, as it mostly does for the team, with a briefing. 

Fifteen minutes in and something like a gasp pulls his attention to her. 

That’s when he notices it; her hands are shaking, coffee spilling out of the mug over her hand. A shatter follows. Her mug smashes to smithereens at her feet. She’s swaying, near collapse, like a house of cards about to fall, a hand on her nose.

Adler catches her before she tumbles to the floor.

“Bell!” His arm around her waist tightens, trying to keep her steady. Lazar rushes to their side in a flash and helps him move her to a nearby chair. 

"Jesus Christ," he curses, more to himself than to her as he watches blood, a bead of angry red, trickling down her nose. **"** Sims, get me a washcloth from the bathroom."

He kneels before her once Sims returns with a damp cloth. Nicotine-stained gloved fingers tentatively grasp her chin, holding her still. 

“Kid, you alright?” Adler asks, worry bleeds into his voice without him realizing it. He firmly presses the cloth under her nose, his other thumb touches the pulse at her throat- it's almost sickly affectionate. “Bell, talk to me."

Bell looks at him, discombobulated, like he's a figment of her imagination, then blinks. Again and again until she heaves a deep breath.

"I-" she hisses. One hand flies up to her head. " _Fuck_. My head.”

Adler’s eyes immediately search for Park’s. A knowing look passes over her face and he knows without saying that she's thinking the same thing, like they're attached to the same brain-wire:

_MK-Ultra._

There’s a fraction of pause, then Lazar asks, "Should we give her something?” 

Before Park can voice her answer, Bell beats her to it. "I already took an anticonvulsant this morning. It should have helped.”

“Wait, this has happened before?” Adler asks.

Bell looks away, a hesitating look shadowing her face. He fears the worst.

“Bell…” he tries again, a slight warning to his tone.

She sighs loudly, as if mentally preparing herself before walking into a storm. 

“Yes. Two days ago."

His mind instantly refers to East Berlin, the TV. Trying to connect the dots in his head. It seems far fetched, but now he wonders if she saw something that triggers this. Although he's never read about this on other subjects before, the correlation is just impossible to ignore.

 _Fuck_. He heaves a breath, willing himself to calm down, to think. They can't afford complications at times like these. Not when there's so much at stake right now.

Adler snaps his attention back to Bell when she tries to scramble awkwardly to her feet, swatting his hand away. The hand on her neck immediately reaches for her waist again and pushes her back down onto the chair. His grip's tight enough to leave marks on her skin, but he doesn't care.

"Bell, for fuck's sake, stay still or so help me," he says, exasperated, not letting go of her waist. 

"I feel better now." _Stubborn little shit._

He is tempted to scream at her face and grab both of her shoulders and shake. “The hell you’re not. Stop fighting it. You’ll only make things worse.”

Her face sours, if only for a millisecond before it morphs into guilt. “I’m sorry.”

Adler watches her for a long moment. It’s only now that he realizes that he’s still holding her waist and the cloth on her face. 

He backs away from her like he’s been burnt. 

“You should have told me. I thought I made it clear the other night to keep me informed regarding this,” he scolds. 

“I’m sorry,” she utters again and she looks so pliable like this, a blank canvas perfumed with obedience and lethal mind. It makes him almost feel sorry for what he has in plan for her once the shit show is over.

“Look, just go back to the hotel and take a day off.” Her mouth cracks open. He raises a silencing hand. “That’s an order, Bell.” But she merely scowls, looking more like jagged ice than a person. Hudson may have just met his match, after all.

“I told you I’m fine.”

“That’s not how it looks to me.”

“It is. It’s my body and I know what I’m feeling, and I’m telling you, _I. Feel. Fine_.”

His jaw clenches. “Are you disobeying a direct order, agent?”

Bell doesn’t answer, but her whole face remains challenging and hard. Undeterred.

Adler holds his breath. He feels the whole room collectively does the same. It’s like staring down the barrel of a gun and there’s an awful sort of danger to be found in that. 

Just when he thinks an imaginary bullet would dig itself into his skin, however, Bell utters, “Of course not.”

And so the woman resumes to her normal, docile self at a drop of a hat. Even when Park steps in and whisks her out of her seat, drives her back to her hotel with Lazar on shotgun. 

It doesn’t assuage his worry, though. He’s still restless throughout the day, like a roaring ocean inside a bell jar. She’s never done this before, openly rebels against him. Now, the situation is just bad. Not casually bad or almost-got-shot bad, this is the-entire-Europe-could-turn-into-a-nuclear-wasteland bad, an-armageddon-waiting-to-happen bad. 

What if this is the beginning of her old self trying to scratch her way out of the surface? Adler’s blood goes cold at the thought. He is going to have to keep a close eye on this development.

* * *

_West Berlin - 1 am, local time._   
  


“How is she?”

“Stable. I’ve administered another dose of Propranolol before I left the hotel. She should be fit as a fiddle in the morning.”

“Tell me, what do you think happened to her?”

“My theory? Traumatic brain injury. A cumulative product of torture, trauma-based mind control and chronic stress. I've read reports about cases like these before in MI6. None of them is still alive to recount the tale, unfortunately."

Adler grips the phone. 

“How long do you think we have?”

“Theoretically, 2-3 weeks tops.”

“But?”

He hears Park sighs on the other line. “But then again, none of the subjects I’ve encountered before were like her. So, I suppose it’s still a little too premature to determine at this point."

Adler kneads his temple, feeling the start of that familiar Bell-induced headache forms in his head. Can things just be fucking simple for once? 

“We don’t have that much time anyway, Park. And if Hudson gets a wind of this, he’ll want her gone by morning. I can’t let that happen. Not…” he pauses. “Not when we are this close.”

"What are we going to do about her, then?" 

Adler sighs.

"Raise the dosages of her drugs,” he says. “And keep an extra eye on her. I think we may be heading into uncharted waters now.”


	2. two

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> okay, i know this one's a little short but i promise there'll be more coming on the next chapter, i promise.
> 
> also check out the playlist for this fic that my good friend aka miss music connoisseur, Buk made for me on spotify!   
> https://open.spotify.com/playlist/73RuVgYwEvtjn8PDAQHmXY?si=LVArq336ToKB0OANfMp6ig&utm_source=copy-link

The first time Bell showed her face at Langley, it was two weeks after the program. She wore beige, a ruffled high-neck blouse that made her hazel eyes, like charred nut shells, hard and just about indestructible, popped. 

She stood at the lobby, regarding the place like she’d waltzed into a wrong banquet hall, the band played in the background, chandeliers dripping like arctic icicles, the bar drenched in opulent gold.

She didn’t belong here.

But Adler met her there, anyway, Hudson in tow.

“Have I ever done something to him?” Bell asked after the rather short-lived meeting, squinting at the vacant spot Hudson left them. She’d yielded very few words. When she did, it’d been all business, crisp, so it surprised him now to hear her uttering something with more than 2 syllables.

“What do you mean?” 

“Have I deliberately done something to piss him off?” she elaborated, quieter, but the glower remained. 

Adler carefully studied her behind his tinted shades. It still troubled him to a degree that he couldn’t read her. Like she locked herself off. They say eyes are the window to the soul, but thus far, he saw nothing. Fuck the poets.

“No. At least, not as far as I can tell,” he grits out, curious to see where she was heading with the conversation. “Why?”

Bell hummed, but seemingly unconvinced. A beat, then: “He doesn’t seem to like me that much.”

 _You don’t belong here,_ he thought and his face went cagier, back stiffer, but no doubt intrigued. Very much so by this mysteriously curious creature.

 _Perceptive and diamond-sharp intelligent_ , he pondered. They might have secured the bag after all.

“It's not you. That’s just as warm and fuzzy you’ll see Hudson with everyone, trust me,” he uttered, hoping that she bought the fib. She did. At least, he thought so. “Come on, Bell, we’ve got a job to do.”

* * *

Adler finds her outside the garage the next night, smoking alone, reading in secret. The ground is still wet from the rain, straggling cloud wisps and every artery of this place fucking freezes his bones. Bell ditches her gloves inside, but has her coat on, the collar popped up like antennae. 

"You aren't cold?" he asks when she doesn’t notice him. Too engrossed in her own bubble. She does look better, though. Park is right about that one at least.

"I'm good," she answers without looking up. "Am I needed for something inside?"

"No, just thought I could use some fresh air." 

He’s studying her, raking her from head to toe. Suddenly, he doesn’t care if she would notice him. Then he steps closer, standing next to her, lifting his cigarette to his mouth. 

“What are you reading?” 

There’s something about this secret element to her that has him on his toes. Everything about her is curious- frustratingly curious, careful, as Bell rolls her neck to meet him. In the low light, she looks quite new, he learns. And his eyes beg for him to linger. 

“ _Amerika_. Kafka,” she says. “Have you read it?”

A subtle shake of his head and, “No.” While Bell nods, silent, like she doesn't know what else to say to him. “Should I? Give it a read?” Adler adds, just to keep the conversation going.

She shrugs, a cloud of smoke escaping her nostrils. “I can’t say that Kafka is ever a favorite of mine, but he really is _sui generis._ And _Amerika_ is probably the most approachable of all his works? It’s funny too.”

“I never thought I’d hear Kafka and funny in the same sentence.”

“Yeah, well, it’s very subtle. And if only you can understand his nightmarish sense of humor, that is,” she explains, shrugging again, like she’s embarrassed. “I don’t know, maybe you’ll like it.”

Frankly, he hates Kafka. He hates his vatic, dead-eye vision of the world; that acute sense of hopelessness clinging onto his main protagonists like vines, but Adler finds himself nodding, anyway. 

“Sure, lend me your copy once you're done with it." If she’s surprised by his answer, she does not tell her. But Adler thinks she’s smiling though- just the barest quirk of her lips, but it’s enough for him to know that she appreciates the gesture. 

A brief, unmapped silence ensues. 

"I'm sorry, by the way."

Adler arches an eyebrow at her. "For what?"

Bell slots a bookmark into the book, closes it, frowns at it. 

"For yesterday. I, uh… I feel like I was being insolent to you.”

He looks sidelong at Bell and tries to read her. Her expression is raw and open, a painting visible through a small tear in the paper. For some reason, that catches him by surprise. 

“You already apologized, you know?” Adler teases lamely.

“I know, but still it was uncalled for and very unprofessional of me. You’re my CO, not some random BND agent I’m forced to work with. I shouldn’t have said that," she mumbles softly and sighs, world-weary, heavy, sounding like a woman twice her age. "It will not happen again. I promise you."

"Hey, consider it water under the bridge, kid. You’re in a rather rough place right now, I wouldn’t hold it against you,” he tells her, fond. “What matters is you’re alright. We can’t catch Perseus if you’re green around the gills.”

Her eyes meet his. He meets her back.

“Thank you.” And Bell rotates her body to face him. Mussed brunette hair and sharp cheekbones, mouth kinked up in sympathy as she says, “Is this what you have to put up with all these years?"

He summons a smirk. "With you? More or less."

And then the woman does the unexpected; Bell laughs. She fucking laughs. Delicate sounding, like a tinkling glass, petals wrapped in satin, moonbeams through frosted windows. It dies, too soon to his liking. Adler privately lets the sound of her laughter replays in his head, as if trying to pocket it.

* * *

It’s only after Ukraine when he discovers that she smells different. That wintry floral smell of hers that he’s accustomed to is commingling with something else.

But now-

Now, there's music in the air. 

Sims does this sometimes, bringing his Zenith Trans-Oceanic, or as he would call it _the_ _Tranny_ , to the safehouse and they would tune in to international radio stations. Cream's Sunshine Of Your Love is playing- or more specifically, their song is 5 seconds away from being cut off abruptly by the DJ. The song reminds him of Vietnam, regrettably. The root of all madness.

_“Next up, is my favorite ever track-to-track transition on an album. This is Pink Floyd’s Brain Damage and-”_

Adler stops whatever it is he’s scribbling. He sits up, ramrod straight.

“Mind switching to another station?” he asks suddenly, glances up at Sims quickly who, as Adler suspected, is giving him a rather odd look.

“Why?”

"I've always hated Pink Floyd." Only because he’s out of reason. Only because he can feel Bell’s confused stare, searing into his temple. Only because it’s the only way of escaping this. "Change it, please."

Sims opens his mouth. The unspoken: _how about that time in Denver?_

The telling jerk of Adler’s lips warns him not to ask. 

The other man clamps his mouth shut, seemingly gets the message and switches to a different station. He never brings his radio again.

* * *

Frank Woods is exactly how Adler saw him last time- or since Hue City, that is: tigerish and intimidating- a kick in the head voice, a hurricane in the shape of a man and he is making his way to him right now.

“Can I talk to you for a sec?” 

"So talk."

Woods shakes his head. "Not here."

Adler looks at him at last now, curiosity creeping over him. He then stubs his cigarette, nods once and leads them both to his office.

Once they’re inside, he locks the door, secures the blinds. 

“What is it?” Adler takes a seat behind his desk. Woods remains standing. He paces around the room, a hand on his bearded chin. 

“What the fuck is going on with your girl?”

Adler doesn’t know which one is worse, the fact that Woods manages to sniff out something going on with Bell or that he just addresses her as _his_ girl. Either way, it's bad. Either way, Adler should have expected the former issue. Woods is astute as he is dangerous. There's a reason why the CIA gave the green light for Mason and Hudson to save him in Da Nang all those years ago, after all. 

"What about her?" Adler asks, even-toned, giving nothing away. Even though he is in the ‘need to know’ column regarding Bell’s brainwashing, this is something Adler initially wishes he could keep under wraps. 

“Don’t bullshit me, Adler. She has that look on her face- I see it in her eyes. The exact same look Mason has been wearing since ‘Nam,” Woods tells him, point-blank, never being the one to settle for niceties. After Hudson, Adler thinks he simply can’t tolerate the agency anymore.

“I saw it all, remember? Had a fucking front row seat to his relapse and shit, so don’t tell me she’s alright. Not when it looks like she could snap out of it any moment.” Woods has his hands on the table and looks at him dead-on. “Tell me I’m right. Tell me there _is_ something wrong with her.”

He regards the other man coolly. Woods is no longer asking. Adler is out of move. 

“You're right,” he answers simply, eventually, tipping his king over on its side, stopping the clock. "Did you talk to Hudson regarding this?"

"Since when did I report to Agent stick-up-his-ass? Fuck no. That's why I came straight to you.” Woods heaves a heavy sigh, like he’s the one with all these burdens. “Now, what the hell’s wrong with her?”

“She’s suffering from brain damage." 

“Shit. All that ‘cause of MK-Ultra?”

“One of the few factors that caused it, yes.”

His mouth goes flat. "How bad is it?” 

“Bad. We’re trying to minimize for any collateral as we speak, at least until we finally get our hands on Perseus. But she… she might not make it.” Adler leans back in his chair, like his body feels heavy all of the sudden. 

Woods nods. Uncharacteristically silent, looking strangely contemplative, sympathetic even. That should be categorized as an oddity itself, Woods and him, two proud Americans, Vietnam veterans and she’s just another red, another blood they would indubitably sacrifice for their country and they’re sympathizing with her? Yet something deep inside Adler, something resonates like the throat of a storm, sinks its teeth into him, confounds him, every time he thinks of her. 

Woods crosses his arms over his chest, glances at the door, as if someone might knock anytime soon, then back to him.

"So, what's the plan?" He quickly adds, "if things go south, what are you gonna do?"

"It won't come to that. She'll come through, I know it," Adler counters, suddenly defensive. Whatever the use of his tone indicates, Woods ignores it.

"You sure about that?”

"Are you doubting me?” Adler spits out a retort. A quiet fury grasps him tight, but he forces himself to keep under a tight lid. 

Woods holds his hands up in mock surrender.

"Look, I’m just saying, that woman is a loose cannon- you can’t be too careful."

"We have everything under control, Woods. And this is the least of your worry right now."

"Alright, okay. If you say you and Park have her contained already, then fine. I trust you,” he says and heads for the door.

“Oh, and one more thing,” Woods says again. He’s facing the door, back to him. “Whatever happens, keep Mason in the dark about any of this." 

“Of course. He isn’t on a need to know basis from the very start, you know that.”

"Good. ‘cause the less he knows the better." Woods pauses like he's constructing an entire sentence in his head. He peers over his shoulder. "I mean it. He’s been through enough. I don’t know which ground you crawled up from, but up here, some people implement this kind of civility to other people.”

The words sting, yet Adler stares back at him, seemingly unfazed. "What, you’re saying that I’m simply heartless?”

“Nah,” Woods says, satirical and sardonic. “You’re just Adler.” And with that, he’s gone. 

* * *

_1976_

It was eight o'clock on a mid-September evening and Adler found himself coming home to an empty house. 

His wife had already left a week prior, crossing the country with a self-proclaimed film critic she'd met at the premiere of _The Shining_ last summer, but Adler didn't know that yet.

He went to the kitchen. Dropped his suitcase, pulled off his coat and scarf. He reeked of cigarettes, cheap air freshener and jet fuel- air travel is simply sickening, in terms of its cost and smell- and in a desperate need of a hot bath.

"Honey?" He switched the lights on. She wasn't here. So Adler headed upstairs, to their room where they would rest their bones every night for the past 15 years. The door was slightly ajar. He expected to see her sleeping from under the duvet, hair splaying all over the pillow.

What he found was a folded note on his bedside table. He stared at it, his heart at his throat, fearing the worst, the unimaginable. He picked the letter and unfolded it.

_  
Russell,_

_Live or die, but don't poison everything_ _._

_Forgive me._

  
His head did pirouette. So, this was it. This was what it felt like, he thought.

Not heartbreak, not sadness. But a collapse of the world- _his_ world and all he could do was watch from the sidelines.

* * *

_1981_

Adler stares at the words now, sleeves rolled up, anatomical heart. The paper is fading, wrinkled and it smells like smoke and decay and tears, capped with something akin to regret.

It has his name on it, begins with it, and ends with an apology, written in cursive. Like microscopic snakes dancing around his peripheral vision, hissing in his ears.

_Live or die, but don't poison everything._

No one likes to be told that they are sick, but Russell Adler has learned to acknowledge it, embrace it, weaponize it. Her words mean zero shit to him now. You can't condemn someone to the depths of hell when it's the only place he's known all his life.

So, he takes the letter for the last time, remembering how the ink used to smudge his calloused fingers, crumples it up, that satisfying crunch dins in his palm, and tosses it into the fireplace.

The paper crackles. Good fucking riddance. It really takes all this time for him to grow the guts, apparently, and he just stares and stares as the fire begins to engulf everything, wiping away his past failure.

He promises he would never fail again, at anything. No matter what the cost, failure is never going to be an option.

* * *

Bell arrives at the garage with frantic eyes, a half-burnt cigarette between her lips and uncharacteristically late. Color peppering her cheeks- red, like an apple bitten into.

“I’m sorry, I overslept,” is her excuse, but she’s looking at the room strangely, he thinks, almost like she’s seeking a particular face. 

When she makes her way to her desk, when she whizzes past him by the board and her planet is entering his orbit for the first time in the morning, Adler, as if by accident or by design, inhales deeply.

His breath snags.

She smells like someone else. 

* * *

_(Someone fucked her last night)_

The telephone rings in the distance.

“Sims. Yeah, sure, let me get him. Hold on.” He puts the call on hold. “Doc, you might wanna take this one.”

 _(Someone was in her bed; beside her, above her, under her._ Inside _her. He imagines her fingers digging into the mattress as they rolled her onto her stomach, mouth trailing down the ladder of her spine. Their breaths intermingled in the seraphic glow of her hotel room)_

Adler mechanically crosses the room and picks the receiver.

“Adler.”

( _If he herds her away from prying eyes and pushes down the collar of her shirt, would he see the evidence there, taunting him? If he kisses her, would he taste them instead of her?_ )

"Perhaps," he says over the phone, his face hard. "But my decision is final. I'm sending Woods and Mason to Yamantau. They'll leave in a few days."

( _Did they make her come?)_

"Of course. Why do you think I chose them for this mission?"

( _If she made them?)_

“Most likely, but we're prepared for this- you know we are," Adler says, customer service polite, an old recording on a playback. "Right. Well, that concludes the matter then. Yeah, you have a wonderful day to yourself.”

Adler hangs up the telephone. Breathes out a sigh. He pinches the bridge of his nose for a few good seconds, before remembering that he has an audience.

"Oof. Sounds rough," comments Sims, dark eyes slanting in concern. 

( _Maybe she likes that, rough. Teeth biting the back of her shoulder, that sweet juxtaposition of pain and pleasure coursing through their veins, his hand curling around her throat from behind as she pants and mewls like-)_

(But this isn’t about him. Never about him)

"That's one way to put it."

Someone else fucked her. It shouldn't leave an acrid taste in his mouth, but it does.


End file.
